


A Night with Ms. Foster

by Artemis_Day



Series: Ms. Foster series [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, F/M, First Date, Gen, His kids are also crazy, Jane is probably going to go crazy, Loki is crazy, Ms. Foster series, and Tony is just Tony
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-08
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-03-06 15:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3138770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Day/pseuds/Artemis_Day
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Lokison triplets' efforts have finally paid off: Ms. Foster and their father are going on a date.  However the night may end, those three are in detention for life, but first, Jane has to survive a night with Loki Odinson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Night with Ms. Foster

**Author's Note:**

> It's finally finished after so many long years! 
> 
> Okay, maybe not years, but I've been trying to get this thing done for so long that it feels like years. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy the fruit of my labors!

When it came to romance, Jane Foster was not a woman with high expectations.  She did not seek out some heart stopping, breathtaking fairy tale romance, she had never once picked up a romance novel, and her intake of Disney movies was sorely lacking. 

Not to say that Jane never wanted to find a mate and get married, she was just a bit more realistic than that.  She fully intended to one day settle down with some nice, safe, bookish type five or ten years down the line.  The kind who wore sweater vests, smoked from a pipe, and held doors open for her when she entered and exited a room.  Her dad used to be like that, minus the pipe smoking and the sweater vest wearing.  He did always open the door for Jane’s mother, though.

The point was that Jane wanted to find a good man.  A nice man.  Maybe those were in short supply these days, but could anyone blame her for wishing?

She had found it once in Donald Blake, the handsome doctor who read poetry on the side and liked soft rock ballads, but though he really was a good guy when it came down to it, he was also something of a pompous jerk.  He just never stopped holding it over her head that he had spent grueling years in medical school to make a name for himself as a surgeon, while she taught kids with runny noses their ABC’s, as if her rotten string of luck in college and losing out on that scholarship had been her fault.  You should have really known better than to be an orphan, Jane, instead of a rich kid with an in.  Have you no ambition in life?

Whatever.  She didn’t need Don.  Her stagnated love life wasn’t even the most important thing to her.

Today, what she needed most urgently was a back way out of the school that nobody else knew about (possibly underground), because there was a crazy parent out to take her on a date, and he had sent a limousine to pick her up at six o’clock exactly.

Jane stood on the top step at the front entrance, her mouth hanging open as the twenty foot car pulled over to the side. The driver had gotten clearance from a befuddled security guard who was now staring incredulously at Jane. 

With nothing else do be done, Jane sent a weak wave in her direction.

“Goodnight, Clara.”

She trudged down the stairs to the sidewalk.  Running was no longer an option.  The limo driver had seen her and was beckoning her over.  That he didn’t have a sign bearing her name in fancy script- and the fact that there was no one around other than that poor security guard- was about the only thing keeping her from dying right there.  First that goddamn parent teacher conference, now this.  This really wasn’t Jane’s day at all.

“Ms. Foster, I presume?” asked the driver.  He was of average height and build with thinning brown hair and a smile that spoke of mystery far more than it did of warmth, kindness, or anything else smiles were supposed to possess.  He was also wearing a suit that looked way too high quality for even a chauffeur to own.

“That’s me,” Jane said, adding in her mind:  _‘Unfortunately.’_

The man stuck out a hand. “Phil Coulson.  Mr. Odinson sent me to pick you up.  I’m going to be your driver.”

There was something ominous in the lack of a specific time frame.  After tepid introductions were finished, he opened the back seat door and Jane slid inside.  She was instantly hit by a blast of heat, like she’d just stepped into a sauna instead of a car.  After days of frigid January air, her body screamed out in joy and relief for all that the crappy central heating at home couldn’t give her.  She could almost forgot who had sent this limousine for her and why as she enjoyed the heat and the soft leather cushions and the mini bar stocked with wine that had her favorite brand and year ready for her. 

“I’ve been instructed to take you back to your apartment to change,” Coulson said from the front seat.  “Mr. Odinson’s daughter had me bring the dress she selected for you along with a few alternatives should her first choice not be to your liking.  Once you’re ready to go, I’ll bring you to the restaurant where you’ll meet Mr. Odinson.  If you’d like, I can take you to any hair or nail salon within a five mile radius beforehand.  Any further and you risk being late, so I would recommend keeping things local as much as possible.”

The six dress bags were hung up on a rack next to her.  The first one bore the label ‘first choice’ in Hela’s distinctive curvy handwriting, with rest designated as alternates one to five.  All of them were shades of green. It was hard not to see all that green as money wasted away.

“Tell me,” Jane said.  “What would I have to do for you to just take me home and leave me there?”

“You would have to pay me at least as much as Mr. Odinson does.”

“Which is?”

“Twenty thousand a week, with a forty percent bonus after the holidays.”

“…I don’t need a hair salon.”

“As you like.”

**

Loki stood tall before a full length mirror, not so much to admire himself and more to watch Hela’s progress in straightening his tie.  He was perfectly capable of doing it himself, but Hela had insisted on tying every knot in the house ever since she was three.

“Hold still, Daddy,” she admonished him.  She was rocking rather dangerously atop that miniature step ladder of hers.  Loki discreetly stretched out a hand to steady it before she could fall backwards.  Then he bit back a gasp when she pulled the knot a little too far up his neck and leaned back to look over her work.  “Okay, I think I got it.”

“Thank you very much.  I appreciate it.”  He picked her up off the ladder and looked over at Jormungandr and Fenrir.  The former was on Loki’s laptop finalizing dinner reservations, while the latter inspected the tailor’s work on Loki’s fine dinner coat, the man himself sweating in the corner.

“You even got that coffee stain out of the lapel,” Fenrir said, examining the spot where said stain once was.  “Looks like you did good, Hank.  Dad, the tailor did good!”

“Give him twenty five percent gratuity, son.”

Fenrir fished out the bills and counted out an appropriate number.  He handed them to the tailor, who gave his thanks and saw himself out.

“I don’t believe I’ll ever have to hire another personal assistant with you three around,” Loki mused.

“That’s just because you don’t have to pay us,” said Jormungandr.  “Other than our allowance, of course.”

“And because the last guy you had was a putz.”

“Hey!” Loki shot Fenrir a warning glare.  “Do not use that kind of language.”

“ _You_  say stuff like that.”

“I’m an adult.”

“Uncle Tony says stuff like that.”

“He is also an adult.”

“Are you sure about that?”

A knock on the door announced the arrival of the family butler.  He was a tall, imposing man with dark skin, soul piercing golden eyes, and the countenance of a man who could kill you with his bare hands alone.  That, almost as much as his professionalism, was the main reason Loki hired him.

“Yes, Heimdall?” Loki said.

“Hi, Heimdall!” Hela shouted.  “Good evening!  You’re looking very nice this evening!”

The butler smiled fondly at the girl.

“I just received a call from Agent Coulson.  Ms. Foster is now in his care and he is bringing her home to prepare as we speak.”

“Excellent,” Loki said, looking down at his watch.  “Right on schedule.”

“The children’s sitter has also just arrived, and if that’s all there is, I’ll be taking my night off now.”

“Yes, that’s everything.  Thank you, Heimdall.”

Heimdall nodded and stepped into the hall.  His departure had Hela squirming furiously in Loki’s arms.

“Wait, Heimdall’s not watching us tonight?” Her eyes wobbled with fat crocodile tears ready to fall.  “But I thought…”

“You’re such a baby!  We don’t even need a babysitter,” shouted Fenrir.

“I beg to differ,” said Loki as he when to check the jacket himself.  A cursory glance was all he needed to be satisfied.  He trusted his tailor and Fenrir’s judgment.  “Don’t think I’ve forgotten what happened the last time I left the three of you to your own devices.”

“We cleaned up the kitchen!” Jormungandr protested.  “And those alpacas were sick when we got them.  It wasn’t our fault.”

“Be that as it may, you’re not staying home alone.”  Loki returned to the mirror to adjust his coat and ensure that his dress shirt was in place with all the buttons done right.  He then checked his pockets for his phone and wallet.  Everything seemed to be in order, and a long shadow was creeping up on the wall outside, heels clacking against the uncarpeted portions of the floor.  “I think you’ll be pleased with the babysitter I’ve arranged for you.”

“Is anyone home?”

The door creaked open one more time, admitting not a tailor or a butler, but a redheaded woman, tall and lovely, and not regularly in Loki’s employ.  As soon as she entered the room, Loki could feel all complaints slip and melt away.  His children gasped and then squealed as one.

“Aunt Pepper!”

The stampede of tiny feet ended with Pepper Potts-Stark being engulfed by three small bodies hugging the life out of her at any available side, shouting ‘Aunt Pepper! Aunt Pepper!’ at the top of their lungs.  For her part, Pepper laughed and ruffled the hair on Fenrir’s unruly head, him being the closest.

“Hey guys, I’m happy to see you, too, but don’t try to trip me.”

“Oh, no, Aunt Pepper.  We’d never do such a thing,” said Jormungandr as he wrapped his arms around her legs and squeezed.

Pepper handled them admirably (and she had perfect balance).  Once they’d calmed down enough to let go, she kneeled to their level to greet them individually.  When not acting as a collective, the triplets all had their own distinct ways of showing affection.  Hela was the most open.  She took a running start into Pepper’s arms and nuzzled her face in her godmother’s shoulder.  Jormungandr preferred to hug around the neck, and his feet dangled off the ground as he reached up.  Fenrir was the ‘macho’ man.  He always said he didn’t like hugging or ‘girly stuff,’ but once Pepper got to him and planted a kiss to the side of his head, the boy turned red as a beat and stammered.  As Hela liked to say, he was as soft on the inside as a plush toy.

“Somehow, I knew they’d be happy to see you,” Loki said. Pepper disentangled herself from the children so she could properly greet the father.  She said so with a friendly hug that Loki didn’t return beyond a pat on the shoulder.  Barring his children, he’d never been one for hugging.  “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“Don’t worry about it.  I don’t need an excuse to spend a night with my godkids,” said Pepper.

“I assume Tony was too busy to come?”

“Well, you know Tony.  He says he’s got some big project that’ll take all night, but eventually he’ll get bored and wander over looking for me.”

“Just so long as he takes the car,” said Loki with a shudder.  He usually didn’t mind his friend’s insane creations, but there were still times he lost sleep over the day Tony allowed Fenrir to try out his new jetpack apparatus. 

The minutes slipped by, and another look at his watch told Loki that he was about to be late.

“I’ll be leaving now to meet Ms. Foster,” he said to the triplets.  “Before I go, do you remember what we discussed?”

“Behave for our sitter and go to bed when she tells us to,” Hela recited.

“Finish our homework and clean our rooms before bed,” Fenrir continued.

“And absolutely do not wiretap the restaurant or the observatory,” Jormungandr finished.

Loki gave him a stern look.

“…or the car.”

Loki smiled.

“Then I will see you all in the morning.  You may go.”

Fenrir and Jormungandr took off for their rooms, doubtlessly grabbing whatever new toy or project they wanted to show Pepper first.  Hela made to follow, but slowed to a stop at the door.  She stared out into the hall, as if contemplating something severe.  Loki walked over, he’d move around her if he had to, but then Hela spun and gripped his leg.  She stared at him with bright, hopeful eyes that never failed to raise his spirits, whether he was in a truly awful mood or a perfectly good one.

“Be extra nice to Ms. Foster, Dad,” she said.  “She’s special.  I’m sure of it.”

She pressed herself into his leg, burying her face and maybe a few tears.  It wouldn’t be the first time. Loki placed a hand on her head, not patting her, but just letting her feel his skin on hers.  Oftentimes, that was all she needed.

“Yes, little one.  I know.”

**

Jane looked like absolute crap and no one could convince her otherwise.

Not Coulson.

Not the old lady next door who walked into the hall with her garbage in hand and said she looked beautiful.

Not the doorman who did a double take when he saw her and almost knocked into a man holding a flower vase.

No one.

She had chosen the dress Hela picked, not because she saw it and immediately fell in love (gorgeous as it admittedly was), but because she had no desire to waste time sifting through the rest of them.  She wanted to put the damn thing on, get her hair in a presentable state, go to this stupid dinner and get the whole thing over and done with.  Questions of how to approach that kiss from earlier and what she would say to the triplets when she saw them tomorrow in class could wait until later, or she would’ve liked them to anyway.

Because really, what on God’s green earth had she ever done to make them think she could be their mother?

That had been on her mind more than anything else since the moment Mr. Odinson dropped that little bombshell on her.  She hadn’t believed him at first, thought he was playing games with her even, but overtime, as she thought more and more on their behavior, it started to make sense.

Why else would they give her so many gifts unless they wanted to endear themselves to her?

Why would Fenrir ask if she was  _single_  of all things, unless they wanted to make sure she was free for their father to pursue?

God, why didn’t she see it before?

 _‘Because it’s crazy, that’s why,’_  her inner voice of reason said.   _‘It’s the kind of thing that happens in stories, not reality.  Just like super genius children and hot, single billionaire CEOs who go after something other than supermodels.’_

The ride to the restaurant took eighteen minutes, and Jane still had no idea where they going.  All Coulson would tell her was that it was a very nice place, and he was forbidden from telling her anything about it before they got there.  What Mr. Odinson hoped to gain by keeping weird secrets was anyone’s guess, but the time Coulson’s silence afforded her gave her ample time to consider her next move.

Obviously, now that she was on her way there, there was no getting out of this date unless a truck plowed into them or a fire broke out at the restaurant.  The old ‘sneak out the bathroom window’ trick was an option, but that only worked on people you knew you’d never see again, and she saw his kids every day.

Then there was the thought of playing sick so she’d have to cut the night short, but given everything Mr. Odinson had told her and all that she’d seen for herself, she was likely to wake up the next morning with a professional team of the county’s best doctors waiting to cure her, courtesy of some well-meaning yet highly intrusive second graders. 

By the time Coulson gave her a two minute warning, Jane was back at square one, not that she ever moved forward to start with. 

“There’s a mirror in the side compartment to your left in case you want to look over yourself one more time,” Coulson said.

“Thanks for the advice,” Jane muttered.

The clothing of the people walking up and down the street seemed to get fancier with each consecutive block.  The crowds that turned their heads in awe and wonderment at the sight of an actual limousine tapered off to nothing after just a couple of minutes.  Heading down one street, Jane could see why.  The jewelry store on the curb was a Tiffany and co., the only one in town and the place she and Darcy liked to stop and stare at longingly.  Next to it was some kind of high-end clothing store Jane recognized both for its unpronounceable name (it looked Russian to her), and the time she’d gone in on a clearance sale and made the painful discovery that their cheapest discounted items ran from a hundred dollars up.

“This is… a very rich part of town,” Jane said. 

“Mr. Odinson is a very rich man,” said Coulson.

He pulled over in a long, empty parking spot specifically designed for limousines.  A man in a red jacket and hat was waiting to hold the door open for her.  Jane stepped out, trying her damnedest to walk straight in the wobbly high heels that came with her dress.  The last time she wore shoes like this was at a wedding several years ago, and she didn’t recall being any lighter on her feet then than she was now.

“I’ll be waiting to take you and Mr. Odinson when you’ve finished your meal,” said Coulson.

“Take us  _where_?”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

If the outside of the restaurant, with its towering windows and polished marble walls, weren’t intimidating enough, the interior of the place was downright oppressive.  The dining room spanned the length of the building, which already took up half a block.  The seating area was packed with women in furs and men in three piece suits.  Some of them puffed up clouds of smoke in the smoking area.   Others talked amongst themselves, and not always in English if Jane was hearing correctly.  No matter what anyone was doing, or whether or not they were here to be served and not serving themselves, they all had the uncanny ability to make Jane feel like a clown at the opera house.  The dress that she’d held against herself before a full length mirror five times, just to make sure it really was her exact size, felt too large and too small at the same time, and she didn’t understand how that could be. 

A woman, tall and graceful with dark brown hair pulled into a bun, walked in her direction.

“Jane Foster?  We’ve been expecting you.”

Jane's mouth went dry.  Swallowing, she nodded to the woman—who looked more like a Hollywood actress than a hostess—and followed her out of the waiting room.  She tried not to look back at the people staring at her.  They’d probably been waiting for hours to be seated, and here she was getting in after five seconds.

“How did you know it was me?” Jane asked once her throat opened up.

“Mr. Odinson made us aware that you’d be joining him for dinner tonight,” said the woman.  She tapped on her ear piece and hummed, murmuring something to herself about changing the batteries.  “We try to do all we can to accommodate him whenever he visits.”

“Oh really?  Does he own the place or something?” Jane wondered aloud, smiling wryly at her own joke.

“He’s certainly invested enough money,” the woman replied, completely serious.  “You’ll be dining with him in a private room.  Mr. Odinson doesn’t like a lot of noise while he’s eating, especially not on a date.”

“Oh, well, this isn’t actually a-“

“Here we are.”

The woman pushed open a door that seemed to appear like magic.  It didn’t even have a handle on it, just more of that sheer red wallpaper with some kind of abstract design on it Jane could barely make out.  Inside, the room was like a little slice of the main dining room cut out and separated.  There was only one table inside, set for two.  One person already occupied it. 

There were papers spread out on the table, except for a small spot for his wine glass and the side for Jane herself.  He was holding one paper and concentrating so hard that it took the woman walking right up to him and clearing her throat in his ear for him to look up.

“Ms. Foster is here,” the hostess announced.

Loki’s eyes met Jane, trailing up and down her body in a way Jane couldn’t properly call lewd.  She closed her arms around the dress’s low neckline, but it felt more for the sake of it than anything else.  He appraised her as one would a painting: like something to look upon fondly for seconds at a time before moving on to the next lovely piece. 

Maybe that was just the anxiety talking.

“Ms. Foster, what a pleasure,” Loki said with a serene little smile that did little to put Jane at ease (quite the opposite).  “My sincerest apologies for the mess.  I had some paperwork to look over before you arrived.” 

“It’s fine,” Jane said as he scooped the papers up and stacked them neatly to be returned to the leather bag at his seat.  A thick and silvery capital L was embroidered onto the bag like a snake at rest. 

“That dress looks lovely on you,” he said, eyeing her silk clad form once more.  “You have impeccable taste, Ms. Foster.”

 _‘Is he mocking me?’_  Jane wondered, with a little vein popping at the side of her head.  “Thanks.  I had a four foot tall fashion guru showing me the way.”

He got to his feet.  He was wearing a suit completely different from four hours ago (Had so little time really passed since then?).  Of course, it fit him way too perfectly.  The top buttons of his white shirt strained like they were going to burst open any second.  Did he not notice that or what he just trying to screw with her? 

“Please, sit down,” Loki said.  He had walked around the table somewhere in the last half a second, and was holding Jane’s seat out for her.

Jane lowered herself onto the soft, satiny cushion that probably cost more than she made in six months.  She muttered her thanks, but it came out more like a non-committed grumble as she grabbed up her menu and tried to read the appetizers so she wouldn’t have to watch him walk back to his seat in those pants that fit him just as frustratingly well as that shirt did.

“I have a gift for you,” he said.  He reached into his inside jacket pocket, which Jane now saw had a slight bulge.

“Aren’t you taking this a little fast?” she asked (not that there was anything for them to take fast, or any other level of speed).

“Admittedly, it’s more from my children than from me.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Jane said with her head falling into the menu.  “I always love their gifts…”

**

Hela walked along the edges of the living room in an endless circle, wearing holes in the soles of her feet, as their old babysitter used to say.  She also said that one bite of her special brownies would make smart kids even smarter, which was the reason she no longer was their sitter. 

She passed Fenrir and Jormungandr for the eighteenth time.  Jormungandr was counting, helpful little brother he was.  Fenrir drowned him out with a combination of his iPhone and that football movie he downloaded last night.  From the looks he gave the both of them every couple of seconds that was one distraction that was fast losing its touch. 

“Do you think it’s going okay?” Hela asked no one in particular.

“Weren’t you the one insisting that Dad and Ms. Foster were made for each other, Ms. Numerology Chart?” Fenrir had tossed aside his iPod in exchange for his tablet.  “Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now.”

“I’m not,” Hela snapped, glaring at him.  “It took us a long time to get to this point.  I think I’m allowed to be a little nervous.”

“A little?” Jormungandr sat up straight and waved his tally sheet in the air.  “If you were a  _little_  nervous, Hela, you wouldn’t have just finished your twenty second lap around the room, all the while sweating bullets and biting your fingernails down to the cuticle.”

“I am not biting my nails!”

“But you are sweating.”

A sound came out of Hela’s mouth that was almost a growl, but more like the noise all kids made when something didn’t go their way.  She was close to stamping her foot on the ground, but instead she channeled it into three more circles.  She stopped again in time Fenrir to shove another handful of popcorn shrimp from the bowl the family chef provided into his mouth.

“Maybe you should sit down and eat something,” he said, reaching for another one.

Hela snatched the fresh piece out of his hands.  “How can I when you’re eating it all?”

“You guys aren’t fighting in there, are you?” a responsible adult voice called out from the kitchen.

“No, Aunt Pepper!” the kids answered in unison.

“I hope not.  Dinner’s going to be ready in ten minutes, so don’t eat any more of that shrimp, okay?”

“Yes, Aunt Pepper.”

Hela gulped down the shrimp in her hand and then turned to find the ceramic bowl empty of all but the tails.

“And I hope you guys have finished cleaning your rooms,” Aunt Pepper spoke over the chef turning on the oven and then cursing in his native language when he inevitably burnt his finger.

“Of course, Aunt Pepper,” said Fenrir.  “It’s all under control.”

He walked to the door with the oversized New York Mets 1983 team poster plastered on and kicked it open.

“Hayer!  Are you finished in there or what?”

Harvey Hayer was in the middle of sorting out the clean laundry and placing each one in the appropriate dresser drawer.  He nearly dropped a pair of blue jeans when Fenrir burst in, but caught them just in time to avoid serious repercussions.

“I’m almost done, L-Lord Fenrir,” Harvey said, standing as straight as his distended gut would allow.  “I just have to finish here and then do the bed.  T-then I’ll get to Lady Hela’s room.”

“Remember to tuck my sheets in on the right side, not the left,” Fenrir lowered his gaze, bringing his face into shadow.  “You know what’ll happen to you if you don’t…”

Harvey shook like a leaf and whimpered.  Fenrir slammed the door in his face and went back to his siblings, shaking his head.

“It’s so hard to find good help these days.”

**

Jane stared at the shimmering jewel in its silvery oval setting, sitting so innocuously in a blue velvet box with a ribbon that bore her name.  It was the kind of thing she’d see in the window of that Tiffany and co. and wonder how it would look around her neck, never expecting to actually find out.  The price tag had been removed, not that it mattered whether or not she knew how much money he’d burned on this.

“You  _really_  shouldn’t have.”  She closed the box and set it aside.  Maybe if she didn’t acknowledge it again, she could just ‘forget’ that it was there and leave it behind.

“I hope it is to your liking.  It’s not often that I spend fifty thousand dollars on the first date alone.”

Then again, maybe not.

Loki perused the menu, humming every now and then when he found something that piqued his interest.  For this to be a place not only frequented by a billionaire, but partially financed by one, the food had to be phenomenal.  It was a shame Jane’s appetite was shot.  He’d taken that away along with her breath and her dignity with that one stupid kiss of his.

To counter the entirely unwanted sensations of tingly warmth in the pit of her stomach, Jane read down a line of dishes that appeared to have snails or eel as the main ingredient, but all that accomplished was changing the red in her face to green.

“I wanted to ask your opinion on a matter of great importance.”

This was as businesslike as he’d ever been with her, and if her gut feeling was accurate, it was not going to happen again.  From his briefcase, he removed a series of papers, and if she’d been wondering before why he would bring work with him on a (kinda sorta) date, she was itching for an answer now. 

“I’ve decided that I can no longer have my children running around town unsupervised,” he said, and though he was bound to notice the shock present in Jane’s expression (He let a bunch of seven year olds wander around alone  _at all_?), he made no show of it.  “I’m looking into personal security for them.  These three are my main candidates.  Tell me what you think of them.”

He placed three sheets of paper on the table before her, a motion that indicated she should stop gawking and pay attention.  She did, not without a degree of disbelief that it had come to this.  She was on a date with an eccentric rich guy, and he was using it to get a second opinion on some job applications.  At least she could say that there were still stranger things that could happen.  He could reveal to her that he really was the mischief god his name implied.  At this point, she wouldn’t be surprised.

Each paper contained a photo of a man.  The first in line was handsome with sandy blonde hair and a scruffy face.  He was really mugging it for the camera, smiling and winking like a model at a photoshoot.  All that was missing were some squealing teenyboppers in the background.  His name was Fandral, and apparently, he was both college educated and a skilled fencer and kickboxer with several awards to his name.  Just goes to show you really can’t judge a book by its cover.

“I’m considering him to work primarily with Fenrir,” Loki said, his chin resting on laced fingers.  “You are looking at Fandral right now, yes?”

Jane nodded, and if she were honest, this guy did look like someone Fenrir could get along with.  At the very least, he wouldn’t be scared away.

Neither would the next one, a severe faced Asian man who boasted mastery in several styles of kung fu, none of which Jane had ever heard of before (one of these days, she was going to have to introduce some ninja films into her and Darcy’s bi-weekly movie night).  He was called Hogun.  It occurred to Jane that there wasn’t a hint of a last name anywhere on these applications.

“He would do well with Jormungandr,” Loki said.

The final one was a round faced man whose bush of red hair extended from the top of his head to his long whiskers and beard.  Even so, he was a jovial looking fellow, the kind you’d want at all your parties.  He was Volstagg, another fencer who was also an ammunitions expert, and much more agile than his large body suggested.

“Hela?” Jane asked.

“Volstagg has daughters of his own,” Loki explained.  A waitress arrived to refill their drinks, and though their menus were abandoned, she seemed to understand that they weren’t yet ready to order. 

“So you think he can relate well to yours,” Jane said.

“You know me too well already.”  He sipped leisurely at his drink, some kind of champagne from the look of it.  “Shall I assume you approve of them?”

“If you think they’re okay, that should be good enough,” Jane said, sliding the papers back to him.

“Your input matters as much as mine in this case.”

Jane’s eye twitched, her fingers gripping the tablecloth.  “Why is that?”  _‘Please don’t be the mother thing again.  Please, please, please…’_

“Because you are their teacher.”

_‘Oh, thank God.’_

“I would think that while they are under your authority, you would care for their safety as much as I do.”

“Do you not think the school is doing enough to protect them?”

“Perhaps I misspoke.”  He took another drink.  “While their well-being is of course my main concern, their recent behavior indicates to me that protecting the school from them is the more pressing matter.”

After the incident with the fruit flies and seeing Harvey Hayer switch from a domineering bully to being afraid of his own shadow, Jane was unable to raise a defense.  They were all good kids most of the time, and surely both of them knew that, but if Jane was feeling a little more open (that is to say, if she was on a date with literally anyone else), she might agree outright that some extra help would be appreciated. 

There came a curt knock, and the door swung open.  With her menu back out, Jane couldn’t see the waitress.

“I’m not quite ready to order yet,” she called out while reading down the list of salads (her plans to go Dutch were disintegrating with each and every price).

“That’s fine.  I’m only here to serve him.”

Jane looked up.

The woman at the door was not the waitress.

She was several inches taller than Jane, who could tell just from looking at her.  She wore a black dress that highlighted her curves, and the way she moved seemed carefully designed to draw attention to her hips.  Jane was a perfectly comfortable heterosexual woman, who experimented once in college and never had the desire to again, but even she couldn’t stop staring, and Loki seemed to have forgotten that she was there at all.

“Ah,” he said.  “Hello, Natasha.  How did you find me?”

He took her hand and kissed it, and the grumble in the background alerted Jane to the presence of a man, fairly handsome and not too tall, and staring at Loki like he wanted to set him on fire.

“Sorry to bother you on your date,” the woman called Natasha nodded pleasantly at Jane, “but I have some papers that need your attention.  I hope you don’t mind my delivering them to you personally.”

“Only if you tell me which employee of this establishment told you I was here?”  Loki said with smirk.  “I’ll need to know whom I should have words with.”

“No one told me,” Natasha answered with a sly smile of her own.  “I saw your car parked outside, and I know all your tricks.”

“You most certainly do.” Loki said.

He took the thin ream of stapled papers offered to him and tucked them into his coat pocket for later.  He and Natasha exchanged pleasantries in that ambiguously flirtatious way of theirs for a little longer, while Jane was left to feel as awkward and intrusive as that man at the door probably did, and wonder why it was bothering her so much that her undesired date had the hots for another woman. 

Maybe she  _wasn’t_  the only woman he’d ever tricked into a dinner date.  And here Jane thought she was special.

When the pair said goodbye, and Natasha went to rejoin the man waiting at the door (the arm he wrapped around her waist was nothing if not possessive), Loki returned to Jane, his eyes open a little wider as if just remembering that she was there.

“Ah, Jane.  Forgive my rudeness.  I didn’t even think to introduce you to Mrs. Barton.”

“Mrs. Barton?” Jane repeated.  She tried not to put too much emphasis on ‘Mrs.’.

“She’s my attorney,” Loki explained, patting the breast pocket that housed the important papers.  “An excellent attorney, if I do say so myself.  I don’t know if you read about that Parisian scandal I was involved in several years ago?”

Jane shook her head.  “I don’t really pay attention to tabloids.”

“Then I won’t get into the details.  Suffice to say, she helped me avoid a very serious situation detrimental to my business practices, and I will forever be indebted to her.”

“Sounds like you guys are great friends,” Jane muttered.  The brioche sounded pretty good, but she might want something a little lighter tonight.  Maybe if she started with a salad first-

“Does my having female friends bother you?”

Jane glanced at him, studying his face carefully.  He wore a lot on his sleeve, she’d noticed.  Whether what she saw was real or just an act was a different story, but if she was reading him right, he really liked getting under her skin, or at least believing he had.

“Why would it mean anything to me at all?” she asked.

Loki shrugged, the gesture somehow irking her more than his moment of conceit had. 

“Just checking,” he said, returning to his menu like nothing whatsoever had passed between them.

Jane could feel the odds of her making it through this sanity intact growing slimmer.

**

“I think we’ve talked about me enough.”

 _‘We have?’_  Jane thought with her forehead pressed on the glass and her breath creating fog.

They were in the limousine driven by Mr. Coulson twenty minutes after a dinner that Jane was going to need a whole month to walk off, and they hadn’t talked about anything in that time except the consistency of the lemon meringue pie (which was definitely too heavy no matter what he said), and Hela’s next project for Mrs. Paladino’s art class.  He wanted to know how many pipe cleaners she thought he’d need to buy to create the six foot model DNA Hela envisioned.  Other than that, conversation had been minimal.

It made his sudden declaration sound all the more like exactly that: a declaration. 

“Why don’t you tell me a little about yourself?”  He had his legs crossed, a great improvement over what he was doing before.  That damn ‘spread wide open’ pose should be made illegal.

“I didn’t know you cared,” she said, too lethargic to care anymore about being civil.

“Is it not pertinent to take an interest in one’s date?” he asked, and for a second there, Jane thought he was going to let his leg slide back to the ground again, and then she’d be in trouble.  “Come now, tell me something about… your family, let’s say.  You already know mine so well.”

“My parents are dead, if you really want to know.  They died when I was twelve.  They got caught in a blizzard on the highway right after New Year’s.”

She hadn’t meant to be that blunt or to speak the words so harshly.  He just brought out that side of her, she supposed.  That cool, arrogant way of his, like he owned the universe and everyone in it, had her taking the most traumatic experience of her life and turning it into a weapon, and she had no idea what that said about either of them.

To his credit, he had the decency to be taken aback, at least as much as someone like him could.  His smile vanished, and he seemed to sit up a little straighter.

“I am truly sorry to hear that,” he said with less volume in his voice.  “And have you no siblings?”

“No- well…”

She stopped talking.  No need for her to drudge up any more of her personal backstory for his entertainment.  Sadly, the damage was done.  He was back to looking at her like a bug under a microscope.

“Well, what?”

Jane shook her head.  “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?  Either you are an only child or you aren’t, so which is it?”

He sounded oddly bitter about that, spitting out key words like they were vicious curses.  Of course, when Jane looked, he hadn’t moved a muscle and his features were as relaxed as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

“Okay, fine,” she said, after a period of pointed silence on his part forced her to accept that they weren’t dropping the subject.  “It’s like this: my mom always wanted to have a lot of children.  She was an only child herself and I guess she didn’t like it much.  The first time she got pregnant, she had a miscarriage.  Then she had me, and the pregnancy took a huge toll on her health.  She almost died in the delivery room, and afterwards, the doctors advised her not to try again.  So a few years later, when I was in school, my parents started looking into adoption.”

“I see…” Loki said, and again he looked as though he didn’t like where this story was going, which was too bad for him, because Jane was into it now.

“They never got approved thanks to some bureaucratic crap,” Jane rolled her eyes, just like her mom used to whenever she had to explain why that letter of approval never got sent.  “They became foster parents instead, and before you say anything, yes, that did make the kids who stayed with us Foster foster kids.”

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Loki said.

“Good, because we heard it a million times.”  The memory of all those well-meaning, yet criminally unfunny neighbors still made Jane cringe.  “Most of them weren’t with us for very long.  We were kind of a halfway house for kids about to be adopted, who couldn’t go with their new parents yet because of legal work that needed sorting out.  There wasn’t an orphanage for miles, so we saw a lot of faces.”

As she spoke, Loki crossed his arms over his chest and slid a little deeper into the seat.  Jane couldn’t blame him; this material, whatever it was, was delightful.

“As you can imagine, most of the kids were babies and toddlers.  I think that made my mom happy, though we all missed out on a lot of sleep in those years.  Rarely did we get a kid over five or six, but there was this one boy a year older than me who came when I was eight.  His adoption wound up falling through, but he was allowed to stay with us indefinitely until something else could be arranged.  That never happened, so he was with us until my parents died.”

“And after?” Loki asked, and Jane honestly couldn’t tell if he really wanted to know or if he was just humoring her. 

 “Nothing,” she said.  “I went to live with my godfather in another state, and he went back into the system.  I never saw him again.”

“Well, it sounds like you were close in the time you had together,” Loki said.

Jane gave him a sideways glance.  “You’re not mocking me, are you?”

“I’d never dream of making light of something so serious,” he said, and though Jane really had no reason to think him a liar, she could be suspicious all she wanted.

“If you really want to know, then yes, we were close.”  She ignored the little nod of his head like he’d just won some grand competition she didn’t know they were part of.  “We were as close as any boy and girl that age living in the same house could’ve been.  He teased me constantly, and then he beat up a kid on the playground who tried to do the same thing.  I took his Legos to try and build myself a model telescope and he threatened to color my Barbie doll’s face in with a Sharpie.”

“A bit disproportionate of him.”

Jane waved it off.  “I didn’t care.  I never liked Barbie dolls.”

He nodded, with amusement playing across his features that almost made him look likeable for a second there.

“I can certainly relate to older brother troubles.”  He pulled a small bottle of wine and a pair of glasses out of the mini-bar.  “Now, tell me, what was this fine fellow’s name?”

Jane opened her mouth, the answer automatic and on the tip of her tongue, but in the time it took for her brain to catch up, it slowly closed again.

“I’m not telling you that.”

Loki raised an eyebrow.  “Why not?”

“You know  _why not_ ,” Jane snapped.  If there was one thing she hated, it was people playing dumb with her.  She could enough of that from her students.  “I tell you his name and the next thing I know, you’ll have tracked him down and he’ll be at my door with a big ribbon on his head, and if you don’t, your kids certainly will.”

“Hmm… I can neither confirm nor deny that.”  Loki smirked.  “However, I’m surprised that the idea of seeing your long lost foster brother again is so unappealing to you.”

“That isn’t the point, and you know it.”

Jane grabbed one of the complimentary newspapers stuffed into a cup holder and got engrossed in a headline about budget cuts in the city’s transportation system.  She read the next three paragraphs all full of the fair and objective journalist’s indirect jabs at the incompetency of the city council, and then she turned to the entertainment section.  It sadly failed to live up to its name, and Jane found herself folding up the paper and throwing it off to the side just in time for the glowing lights of another tall building to whip by and blind her for a moment. 

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Loki began, surely knowing that whatever it was, Jane  _would_ mind, “I can see how you got to be so good with children.”

Jane snorted.  “Not that good.”

“On the contrary, you are perhaps the most effective instructor to ever take my children under your wing.  Your tough but fair approach is precisely what drew them to you in the first place.  It’s why I decided to accept their suggestion for once and see where a night with you would go, and if I could see potential for something greater.”

If Jane had been looking properly, she’d be able to say for sure if his eyes really did drop to her feet and then slowly trail back up, as her paranoid mind said they did.

“That’s really nice of you to say,” she muttered.

“I do believe this might be your calling,” he said.

“Hardly,” Jane answered, shaking her head.  “Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy what I do, but I didn’t exactly go to college with thoughts of teaching second grade for the rest of my life.  It just wasn’t… you know, it wasn’t…”

“It wasn’t part of your plan.”

She looked up.  She hadn’t realized her head was down until she saw her feet, wrapped in impossible shoes, down on a carpeted floor with her regular purse propped up against her ankle.  She raised her head and thought she saw another person.  Surely his face had never looked so soft, divest of that snake-like grin or that world conqueror disposition.  Maybe it was just her imagination, but he seemed a little smaller like this, more human perhaps. 

“What makes you say that?” she asked, because so far, their relationship (that isn’t a relationship at all), has been built on him being an ass and her being belligerent, and she’d seen no reason to change any of that before now.

 “I say it because I think I know what you really wanted.”

The limousine came to a halt outside a forested area.  Jane’s brow scrunched together as she looked out at the waving trees with leaves swirling in the wind.  The back window showed dots of yellow lights and structures that from here looked the size of children’s toys.  When exactly they had left the city behind was her first question.  Where they were now was her second.

Neither of them had to be verbalized, because the answer was right in front of her when she stepped out of the car with Coulson at her back.

Her foot found a ground covered in dirt and rocks that kicked up into the air when she took a step.  Loki came around the other side to meet her.  He linked an arm through hers while she was distracted, and she felt that she couldn’t be blamed for this lapse in attention.  The sight of a cylindrical building with the roof open wide for an enormous lens to reach its full height was like something out of a dream she’d had more times in her life than she could count.

“It is just around nine o’clock and the sun has set,” Loki said.  “We have as long as you like to observe whatever the heavens have to offer.  This place is ours until sunrise.”

**

Jane didn’t know how to thank him, which was to say she couldn’t get the words out without feeling like he had somehow one-upped her.  So while he stood off to the side, teetering over the edge of the railing like his money and power would keep him from falling, Jane concentrated on the stars through the lens of that magnificent telescope.  As far as she was concerned, they were a better date than he’d ever be.  She hoped he knew that.

“I see this last hour and a half has been enjoyable for you.”  He spoke while checking his watch for the hundredth time, so yes, he probably did.

“If you’re so bored, go get a magazine or something,” Jane said, turning the dial to focus on a cluster of stars due north-northwest.  She pursed her lips.  “Guess this isn’t the time of year to look for Pegasus…”

“You could go home and watch that cartoon my children are so entranced with.  It’s full of winged horses.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”  Jane typed some new coordinates into the computer module, and the gears and inner workings turned the lens several inches to the left.  “And Pegasus is one of my favorite constellations.  I don’t want to go without at least trying to find it.”

“If it’s not the right time of year, then it’s not the right time of year.”

“Don’t sound so happy about it.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Yeah, right.”

Jane adjusted the lens one more time, though at this point she had it on the highest possible setting and she could probably see all the way to Pluto if she wanted to.  She didn’t know what she was doing arguing a moot point, and busying herself with something else was by far preferable to keeping up a conversation that was going nowhere fast.  She recited out loud all the January constellations she knew, checking them off as she found each one.  When it came to Jane and the stars, there might as well have been nothing on earth at all.  One of the best things about her building, with its creaky floors that made her jump in the night and that one couple across the hall who fought loud and ‘made up’ louder, was the flat top roof with a perfect view of the night sky (or as perfect as one could get living so close to the city).  On warm weekend and summer nights, Jane could be found laid out on a lawn chair, watching the stars until morning.  This was so many steps above beyond that roof that Jane might as well have flown to the top.

And thus, she once more faced the dilemma of how to show gratitude to the jerk responsible for it.

“There’s Taurus,” she said to herself.

“Aren’t you a Gemini?” he asked.

“This isn’t astrology, this is science.  There’s a big difference.”

“I wouldn’t say such things around Hela…”

Jane focused on the constellation, tracing imaginary lines that connected the stars.  This was the only time she was ever going to see it so clearly until she was a rich old doctor who could afford to do these things on her own.  She had to savor the moment.

“You know, they say that Taurus is really a bull the god Zeus became to carry away the human Merope,” Loki said conversationally.

“Yeah, what a beautiful love story that is,” Jane said while playing with a few knobs to enhance the image.  “I never thought you’d be a mythology buff.”

“Not really, I’ve just read a book here and there,” said Loki.  “I’m more partial to the stories of the Norse, them being my ancestors.”

“Somehow, I’m not surprised.”

“Aren’t you?”

Jane looked at him.  It was the first time she’d done so in close to two hours.

“No, Loki Odinson, I’m really not.”

His lips curled, but Jane didn’t wait for the smile.  She’d decided over the course of the evening that she hated his smile.  She hated feeling warm and chilly at the same time.  It was too cold out for this.  As always, the stars were the best comfort she could find.  They pulled her into their embrace, and Jane gave herself willingly.

“There’s Orion,” she said, biting her lip.  “I’ve been waiting for you…”

She’d been waiting so long that finding it drew her even farther out of reality, and she completely forgot that she wasn’t alone in this wide expanse of a room.  Loki’s chuckle sent her right into the air.

“Orion, you say?  Isn’t that a bit common for you?”

Jane almost looked at him again.  Almost.

“For me?”

“You have a passion for the stars, I mean,” Loki explained, walking to the left so that he covered her side vision.  “I would think that a person learned in a particular subject would have intimate knowledge on the inner workings of said subject in every conceivable form and wouldn’t settle for something so plebian.  So it surprises me that out of all the stars in the galaxy, you would choose a set so common that it might as well be a cliché.”

“Are you asking me to be an astronomy hipster?”

It came to Jane before anything else, and it wasn’t even that funny—at least she didn’t think so—but from the way Loki laughed, you’d think it was.  Now Jane was sure she was being mocked, but he still seemed so genuine now.  She had never seen him in such a jovial state.  If one saw him like this and knew nothing of his life, he’d come off as just a regular guy laughing at a joke his date told.  For all the insanity Jane’s painfully average life had been injected with, this was the first time she was truly at a loss (all those other times, she hadn’t had a clue).

“Perhaps I am,” Loki said, and there was that smile again.  “You’ll forgive my boldness, won’t you?”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” Jane said, and though she’d already done it more times than she could count, she retreated right back to the stars, the eyepiece just large enough to hide her reddening cheeks.

**

“I hope you enjoyed yourself tonight,” Loki said.

Jane had eyes on the front doors of her building, where that same doorman straightened his bowtie and his hat in preparation for her entrance.

“Hmmm…” Jane murmured, and then jumped in place.  “Oh yeah?  Yeah, I had fun.  I guess…”

How exactly did one go about telling their date that they were still partially in shock over going on the date at all?

“I hope we’ll get to do it again sometime,” he said, and something in his tone told Jane that he was going to do much more than hope.

“Yeah, me too,” she lied.  “I uh… I guess I’ll see the kids tomorrow.”

Loki nodded.  “Don’t be surprised if I haven’t sent their new bodyguards along as well.  Should that be the case, you have my word that they won’t interrupt your lessons.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that,” Jane said, staring pointedly at the door handle.  “Any other surprises I should know about?”

Loki made a show of thinking.  “Hmm… no, none that I can think of.”

The door unlocked as Loki nodded to Coulson.  The driver came around; though if Jane had been able to move, she wouldn’t have waited for him (she was sick and tired of people holding doors open for her).  The thought that struck her right then had frozen her in place.

This was the end of the date.

_Was he going to kiss her again?_

In an instant, she came up with two scenarios.  In the first one, Loki came on to her like an animal in heat, and Jane reared back a fist and punched his head all the way around (literally in this case; it was called a fantasy for a reason) before kicking that door open and running free with the wind in her hair.

In the next scenario, Loki captured her lips without incident.  Jane may have struggled, but his command over her was absolute.  Some kind of deep, instinctive need pooled in her stomach, and for a moment, Jane didn’t realize that that part wasn’t just a daydream.  She shifted her legs in that stupid tight dress she shouldn’t have worn (she should’ve thrown out Hela’s dresses and worn her grandmother’s old frock), one hand clutching the hem in case it rolled up.

“Something wrong?” Loki asked.

Jane’s answer was punctuated by a gust of January wind slapping her back.  Coulson must’ve opened her door ages ago.

“N-nothing,” she said, rubbing her bare arms all the way up to her almost naked shoulders.  “You’re not going to uh…”

He raised an eyebrow.  “Not going to what?”

“You know,” Jane snapped.  She rubbed her dry lips, letting her fingers linger to make her meaning clear.

Loki’s mouth formed a silent oh.  “Well, I didn’t know you wanted to, my dear.  I had thought to wait until our third or fourth date for a goodnight kiss.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jane said.

“Is that not the gentlemanly thing to do?”

“Yeah, but before now, you haven’t been exactly gentlemanly.”

“Before now, we barely knew each other,” Loki countered, “and if you must know, the kiss was to prove a point, not to seduce you.  That’s not to say I wouldn’t be pleased if it achieved that effect, but it wasn’t my intention, I assure you.”

If that was the kind of kiss he gave to prove a point, Jane was afraid to find out what a real kiss with him would be like (more distressing than that was the part of her that desperately wanted to find out).

“Okay, fine,” she said.  She turned her body around to face the outside.  “No kiss.  That’s a huge relief for me.”

“Not so huge,” he said knowingly.

Jane chose to ignore that.

“If you could tell your kids I’d like to see them after class tomorrow?” she asked him.

“How about another parent teacher conference instead?”

“I don’t think so.”

Stepping out, Coulson shut the door behind her, but took his time going back to the driver’s seat.  He seemed oddly interested in measuring out the building’s perimeter with his feet and counting the surrounding bushes.

“I will be sure to pass the message along,” Loki said.  “My children will be eager to hear from you how the evening went.  Shall I withhold the story of your family life for you to tell?”

“You are more than welcome to tell them none of that,” Jane responded.  “Not that I’m telling them either.”

“Oh come now, don’t be like that.  Would it help if I gave you my solemn oath not to meddle in your personal affairs and to ensure that my children do the same?  Not that there is much they could do about the matter of your long lost foster brother, not when information is so scarce-“

“James, okay?” Jane said, not turning around even though she was halfway to the door.  “His name was James, and that’s all I’m going to say.  Goodnight, Mr. Odinson.”

She entered through the front door, past the stammering doorman and into a well heated lobby.  If she listened carefully, she could almost hear Loki’s voice carry in the wind, so faint that she may have just imagined it.

“Goodnight, Ms. Foster.”

**

The date had gone well, in Loki’s opinion.  It gave him a good idea of what he was dealing with, and how he should proceed from here.  As a child, his mother always taught him that patience was a virtue.  He was going to have to remember that lesson if he wanted the next few months to work in his favor.

He knew that Jane Foster was attracted to him (the kiss was all he needed for that).  He knew that he was very much attracted to her.  If things were to progress between them, he would have to take it slow from here.  He would have to lay low and give her time to breathe.  Stark liked to tell him that he was a short step above a comic book supervillain, but even he could understand a lady’s need for space.  He’d thrown her for quite a loop today.

The children would not approve of his plan, but that was to be expected.  Their genius stayed mostly in the realm of academic pursuits; there were some key facts of life that they had yet to learn.  One of them was that you can’t rush into these things like a bull in a china shop.  Certain situations required discretion and finesse.

Dating your children’s teacher was one of them.

Coming home to find said children asleep in the living room, still in their day clothes, draped all over a breaded, snoring idiot with a jetpack remote control in his hand was another.

Loki started by looking for Pepper.  She was seated at the kitchen table with a late night snack and a thick paperback book.  She nodded at Loki and held a finger to her lips, then went back to reading.  With the proper sitter accounted for, Loki eyed once more the interloper.  With practiced care, he eased his children one by one into his arms and carried them to their beds, tucking them in and leaving them to their slumber.  That left just the man, who had kicked his shoes and coat into a messy pile on the nice clean floor.  It would have to be waxed and possibly fumigated to get rid of the stench of motor oil. 

Loki went to the kitchen and filled a pitcher of water.  While Pepper hummed a tune and flipped through her book, Loki dumped the whole thing over her husband’s head, then stepped back so he could gasp and flail without getting too much water on Loki’s good dress pants. 

“Whadda hell?” Tony Stark whipped his wet head around, breaking out some faux-karate moves to use against his imagined attackers. 

“Stark, get out of my house,” Loki said, dropping the empty glass to the floor at his feet.  “How did you get in here?  I never gave you a key.”

Tony scoffed.  “You really think I need a key?  And what’s with the third degree, Lo, I thought we were friends.”

“Well, for starters, I’ve asked you a hundred times not to call me ‘Lo’ or any other obnoxious derivative of my given name.”

“No need to break out all the fancy words, Mr. Stuffy Brit.  I’ll have you know that Rhodey never complains about his nickname.”

“I am not Mr. Rhodes, and his method of dealing with your nonsense has no bearing on mine, thank you.”

“Sounds like someone didn’t get laid tonight.”

That was all it took for Loki to decide that he really didn’t care anymore.  He’d known Tony Stark for almost a decade, and if there was one thing he’d learned, it was that the man was an imbecile and perpetually four years old.  Arguing with him was tantamount to arguing with a toaster oven.  He turned to Pepper, who was marking her place near the end of the book and taking a final sip of coffee. 

“He showed up halfway through dinner,” she said.

“As was expected,” Loki responded.

“Why do I feel like I’m being patronized right now?” Tony wondered.

With a shake of her head, Pepper slung her purse over her shoulder and took her wayward husband by the arm, pulling him to the door.

“The kids were all perfectly well-behaved tonight, Loki,” she said.

“Except I think Fenrir might have an imaginary friend.  He kept going to his room every five or ten minutes and shouting at something he calls ‘Hayer’ to wash the windows.  You should get him a therapist.”

“Out of my house, Stark.”

“But  _Mooooooom_ -“

“Out!”

“Goodnight, Loki!”

The door slammed shut, and the Starks were off.  Tony would be back with a vengeance by tomorrow morning (hopefully he’d keep his inventions at home this time), but for now, Loki could enjoy the quiet of the night and maybe get a little work done before bed.  First, he would check on the children.  He started with Hela’s room.  She had curled into a ball since he left her, her unbraided hair in waves over the scarred side of her face.  Loki pushed it over her ear and kissed her cheek.  Her face screwed up and she turned, opening heavy eyes.

“Daddy…” she breathed, already on the breadth of falling back asleep.  “How’d it go?”

Her hands reached out at the air, and Loki pulled a stuffed toy from the mountainous pile at the foot of the bed and deposited it into her waiting arms.  She relaxed at once.  Loki rubbed the top of her head.

“It went just fine.”

**

Jane greeted the day like a bad morning after.  She’d had plenty of those with Don in the waning stages of their relationship, but never had they been as cold as this one.  The empty side of her bed added to the chilly.  She’d forgotten to turn up the thermostat before going to bed last night (not that it mattered). 

After five minutes of spinning around in front of the seventy two degree air blowing from the vents, Jane was as ready as she’d ever be to start the day.  In spite of the general ‘woe is me’ mood ( _‘Just one guy.  One nice, normal, non-crazy billionaire guy is all I ever wanted.’_ ), she had her hair washed, her clothes on, and her shoulder bag packed full of graded tests and lesson plans in record time.  It’s amazing how easily one can go through their morning routine on autopilot when their mind is on another planet.

Jane exited the building, happy to greet a different doorman from yesterday, and was immediately assaulted by multiple flashing lights inches away from her right eye.  She was blinded and stumbled, as the barrage of clicks and flashes continued in time with a male voice asking her to turn.

The torment ended in two ways.  Jane hid her face inside her winter coat to avoid the flashes, and then the clicking came to an end with a crash and a grunt and a couple of thuds, like flesh hitting flesh.  Jane pulled her head up to observe the scene.  She hadn’t known what to expect, but the skinny man in ski clothes on the ground with a bloody nose was not it.  Nor was the other, more well-dressed man standing over him, disassembling a camera and throwing the film into the sewer duct.

“Mr. Coulson?”  Jane had to be seeing things, but no matter how many times or how hard she rubbed her eyes, that was still her chauffeur for the day beating up a paparazzi while looking like one of the Men in Black.

“Yeah, I may have fibbed a little right off the bat,” Coulson said.  “I’m not really a limo driver.  I’m a former government agent of twenty five years, retired to form my own private security firm.  Mr. Odinson hired me to protect you.”

“Protect me?  Protect me from what?”

Coulson glanced at the fleeing photographer, then back at Jane.

“No offense, Ms. Foster, but I don’t think you realize what you’re getting into with Mr. Odinson.  It’s not all fun and games.”

“Who said anything about fun?” Jane asked miserably.

One normal guy.

_One normal guy._

Was that really so much to ask?

**Author's Note:**

> Next time: The Counsel of Ms. Foster. Now that the date is over, Jane's going to need some friendly advice. Meanwhile, Loki needs a little help himself. 
> 
> Coming soon!


End file.
